


Distractions

by jashin_senpai



Series: I Promise You, You'll Never Be Alone [1]
Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Other, Suicide Attempt, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-04-22 13:21:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4836845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jashin_senpai/pseuds/jashin_senpai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jay doesn't cope well after Zane's death. Kai doesn't want to think, so he worries about Jay instead.</p><p>Set during the timeskip between S3 and S4.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> Fun Fact: This fic was originally supposed to be a short prequel to another work about Kai, Lloyd, and Lloyd's raging daddy issues, but it got out of control.

Kai was seriously starting to worry about Jay.

Last month had been bad enough, when Jay had been a sobbing, wailing mess and Kai had spent a lot of time holding him and petting his hair while he sniffled into his chest and got the front of his shirt all soggy. But at least he had been showing some kind of emotion, which was more than he’d done for the past two weeks.

He hardly bothered to get out of bed anymore, just lay there staring at the ceiling. Kai brought him food, but he would just poke at it listlessly without eating it. Sometimes he wouldn’t even react to Kai’s presence, seemingly lost somewhere in his own head.

He wasn’t sleeping either. Kai knew this because he’d started sleeping in Jay’s bed sometime during the crying mess phase and had never got around to leaving. He’d lie there at night spooned up next to Jay’s smaller body, one arm curled loosely around his waist, drifting somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness but never quite sleeping. Every time he looked over at Jay, the other boy would still be lying motionless and awake, eyes tracking invisible patterns on the ceiling.

Sometimes during those dim, silent vigils, Kai found himself wondering if he was using Jay as a distraction from other things. But whenever he allowed that train of thought to coalesce in his mind, it inevitably lead to thoughts about Zane and Lloyd, and Kai was trying not to think about Zane’s sacrifice, and trying very hard not to think about Lloyd at all. So he worried about Jay instead.

And truthfully, it was breaking his heart to see his best friend like this. The loud, dramatic, and ever-positive guy was gone, replaced with this silent doppelganger. Remembering how excited Jay had been on the rocket, thrilled to be exploring space despite the danger they had been in, and how bright and energetic and determined he used to be, made something unpleasant well up in Kai’s chest. He should’ve expected Jay to take the death of a teammate badly, he’d always felt things so intensely. He was the type of guy who loved the people he cared about with every fibre of his being. And the whole situation with Nya and Cole on top of everything else was definitely not helping.

Kai supposed he should probably be more impartial about said situation, but he was finding it hard not to be angry at the both of them, especially Cole. He could kind of understand the reasons behind his sister’s actions, even if he didn’t agree with them, but Cole had no business moving in on a teammate’s girlfriend like that. Kai was pretty sure he didn’t even really _like_ Nya like that. Certainly he didn’t feel nearly half as strongly about Nya as Jay had.

He and Cole hadn’t been on speaking terms since the day after Zane’s memorial. Jay had been clingy and tearful through the whole thing, and then spent half the night working himself into a frenzy over whether being upset by the sight of Cole hugging Nya made him a terrible person, because it was such a trivial thing compared to the loss of Zane, and he just wanted Nya to be happy, but it still _hurt_.

After Kai had finally calmed him down, he found Cole and hurled some choice words at him, then attempted to deck him. Cole managed to block him, but barely.

“Jay needs to stop being so goddamn pathetic,” he’d returned through gritted teeth, “and since when is it any of your business how I feel about Nya?”

“She’s my _sister_ , Cole. And it is so my business because it’s affecting the team” Kai replied.

 “Oh yeah? What about you and your little fixation with the kid, you don’t think that’s affecting the team?”

That last comment had hit way too close to his Definitely-Not-Thinking-About-Lloyd defences, and he felt that black eye he’d given Cole had been pretty well justified. He hadn’t really seen him since. It was probably for the best. Probably.

***

“You look terrible.”

Nya was giving him A Look across the otherwise empty kitchen table. A “you might currently be acting like a prick, but you’re still my brother and I’m worried about you” look.

Kai sent her A Look right back. A “you broke my best friend’s heart and you’re avoiding him on purpose, so I’ve had to take care of him by myself, thank you very much” look. It was kind of half-hearted though, due to the fact that he was feeling distinctly zombie-like. Too little sleep, and far too much thinking.

Nya sighed into her oatmeal.

“Look, Kai…” she began hesitantly. “How is he doing, really?”

“Oh, he’s doing swell,” he quipped sarcastically, “aside from not eating or sleeping or talking or-”

His hands suddenly started shaking so badly that he dropped his spoon. It fell with a loud clatter onto the table, which was strangely blurry.

Nya put her arms around him instantly, and he managed to choke out “He’s really, really not okay and I have no idea what to do.”

She squeezed his shoulders sadly. “Oh, Kai.”

The two of them sat there silently for a few minutes while Kai got his emotions back under control. After a long pause, Nya spoke. “I know I have no right to interfere with him, but I feel terrible for all of this.”

“You aren’t the only reason he’s like this” he said.

“I know, but I feel like I did something awful to him” she sighed.

“Because you did” he replied, and she grimaced. “Look, I’m not mad at you for wanting to end things with him. You guys got together when you were pretty young, and I know you’ve changed a lot since then while he’s stayed the same. It’s fine that you grew apart and wanted something different. You’re an adult and I respect your decisions.”

“But you are mad at me” she said.

“Because you weren’t honest with him about it! Pretending things were great and then flirting with his teammate behind his back? He would have been sad if you told him the truth, but he would’ve understood. Now he just feels betrayed by two of the people he cares about the most.”

“You’re right, of course” she said, dropping her head to rest on his shoulder. When she continued, her voice was muffled by the fabric of his shirt. “Please, keep trying to help him. I need to make things right with both of them, but I can’t do it while he’s like this. I know I’m still being horrible and selfish, but I can’t stand to see you all this way.”

“Of course I’ll keep trying! I just wish I knew how to get through to him” he said.

“You could try taking him out for a night. I know he doesn’t want to leave his room, but a little push might do some good” she suggested hesitantly.

“Maybe.”

“You need to get out as much as he does” she said. “I know you feel like you need to be the strong one here, but don’t think I can’t see how much this is affecting you too. And maybe… maybe you should call Lloyd so you can all work through this together.”

“Lloyd’s too busy training with his father. Which is a good thing” he said. He hoped it sounded convincing. “Jay and I will get through this by ourselves, somehow.”

“I hope so” she said. “I really hope so.”

***

After a lot of time and coaxing, Kai had finally managed to get Jay out of bed and out of the house for a night out, but all he’d wanted to do was go to a bar and get smashed. Part of him was worried that it might do more harm than good, but the larger part of him that was tired of being responsible had wholeheartedly agreed with the idea.

The night had become terribly hazy after that. Kai only remembered a few snapshots here and there; flirting with some random girl – the only thing he could recall about her was her pale blonde hair – who’d scrawled her number down his arm at some point, rubbing Jay’s back as he puked his guts out in some disgusting public bathroom, getting into a bar fight with a couple of serpentine. The fight had spilled over into an alley after they’d been kicked out, but petered out quickly when it became apparent that none of them could remember what had started the fight in the first place. One of the serpentine – Kai was pretty sure it had been a constrictai – had clapped him on the back afterwards in a friendly sort of way, informed him that they “fought real good”, and invited them to join something called a ‘Slither Pit’ the next evening.

Somehow the two of them had managed to drag themselves back home, and Kai woke up the next morning in Jay’s bed with the other boy sprawled halfway on top of him and a splitting headache. He gently manoeuvred him back onto his side of the bed, and stumbled downstairs to fetch them both water and painkillers.

“Uuuuuuuunnnnnghhhhhhh. I feel like I’m dying” Jay moaned when Kai had finally managed to wake him up and forced the pills down his throat.

“Same here” Kai replied, flopping back down on the bed beside him. They lay there in silence until the painkillers started to kick in, and then sluggishly headed to the kitchen where Kai made them both scrambled eggs on toast and Jay managed to coax the temperamental coffee machine to produce something halfway drinkable.

Kai was pleasantly surprised to see Jay actually eating his food instead of just poking at it, but he didn’t want to draw too much attention to it. After breakfast, they went back to Jay’s room and slept most of the day away.

***

When they woke up, it was late afternoon.

“Are we gonna go to that Slither Pit thing?” Jay asked.

“I dunno man. You want to go?” Kai replied.

“Kinda. I guess. I mean, why not?” Jay said, fidgeting a bit.

Kai felt slightly uneasy about Jay’s possible motives for wanting to go ( _looking for another form of self-destruction?_ ), but it was so good to hear him actually ask to go somewhere instead of lying in bed staring at the ceiling. Surely any sort of progress was a positive sign?

“Yeah alright, we can go” he said, sitting up and pulling off his very-obviously-slept-in shirt. He rummaged around in the pile of their clothes that had accumulated on the floor of Jay’s room, trying to find something relatively clean.

“Who’s Becky?” Jay suddenly asked.

“Huh?”

“Becky. It’s written on your arm” Jay pointed.

“Oh. Some girl I ended up talking with last night” Kai replied, glancing at the messy signature under the row of digits.

“You gonna call her?”

“No.”

“Seriously?”

“You wanna call her instead?”

Jay looked like he was considering it for a few seconds, but then his expression dimmed significantly. Kai mentally kicked himself for suggesting it.

“You better get up and get some clothes on, if you’re serious about this Slither Pit thing” he said, determined to keep Jay from falling back into his emotionless state.

Nya seemed surprised to see the two of them going out again, but she didn’t say anything as they left. They headed to the location the constrictai had given them, some seedy, overcrowded bar near the edge of town.

“I don’t see any pit” Kai said.

“Maybe this is the wrong- hey, isn’t that the guy who invited us over there?”

Kai turned to see where Jay was looking and immediately spotted the bright orange serpentine, who seemed to have recognised them and was making his way over.

“You two made it after all! Follow me, the Pit’s just through here” he said, leading them to a door near the back of the bar. He knocked on it, three short taps followed by a long one, and a slot at eye level slid open to reveal a pair of glowing red eyes.

“Yesssss?” a voice hissed from behind the door.

“Snike here, with two guests” their companion stated eagerly.

The slot slid closed again, and then the door opened to let them through. When Kai and Jay entered however, they both jumped back a little in surprise.

“Skales? Is that you?”

“Sssnike, you idiot! You’ve brought two of the ninja right to our doorssstep!” the hypnobrai shouted angrily.

“W-what? I swear, I didn’t know they were ninja!” Snike stammered.

“Cool it, Skales. Jay and I aren’t here as ninja” Kai said.

“You’re here for the Slither Pit?” Skales said, raising a brow. “Well well, that’ss sssertainly… unexpected. Needed a little stresssss relief?”

Kai grunted noncommittally in reply.

“Hmph. I sssuposse you can join, ssso long as you promise not to cause any trouble.”

The hypnobrai led the three of them down a narrow staircase and through another door to a big, open space. There was a large circular pit sunk into the floor, where a guy with a shaved head was wrestling with a fangpyre scout. Spectators, both human and serpentine alike – Kai thought he might have even spotted a couple of Skulkin amongst them – surrounded the pit, cheering and booing the combatants. There was a small bar in one corner, and a chalkboard where a hypnobrai soldier was writing up what appeared to be betting odds in another.

“Enjoy yourssselvess then. Ssssnike here can explain the rulesss” Skales said, before heading back upstairs.

“Are you guys really ninja?” Snike asked the two of them, wide-eyed.

“Look, we’re just here for some stress relief, like I told Skales,” Kai said, “so could you please get on with it?”

“Right, right, that’s fine, that’s cool” Snike acquiesced. “Now the first rule is, you can’t go telling people about this place okay? Second rule is, you _really_ can’t go telling people about it.”

“Uh, those two rules are exactly the same” Jay deadpanned. “Anyway, didn’t you tell _us_ about it?”

“That was… different!” Snike blustered. “But that rule is super important, ok? Slither Pits aren’t illegal, but they aren’t exactly encouraged and we don’t want more trouble than necessary.”

“We get it, no telling people. Anything else?” Kai replied.

“Only two combatants to a fight, and if one of them taps out the fight’s over. Otherwise fights go on as long as they have to. And finally, if this is your first night at the Slither Pit, you gotta fight. Got it?”

“Got it” Kai said. “Where do we sign up?”

***

They’d started going to the Pit four, even five nights a week. Kai found it addicting – the roar of the crowd and the thrill of victory, the satisfying ache in the knuckles that came with a good solid impact against an opponent’s body, and those perfect moments of focus where the rest of the world just fell away and all that mattered was the fight.

He’d taken on the alter-ego of ‘the Red Shogun’, mostly as a security measure so his real name couldn’t be traced from the betting rings, but it also helped to deflect awkward questions about his former occupation. Jay – who had taken to calling himself ‘Bluejay’ – didn’t join the fighting as often as Kai did, but he was always there to lead the crowd cheering Kai from the sidelines. Naturally charismatic as he was, his wickedly sarcastic and genuinely amusing commentary on the fights had become widely appreciated, and it wasn’t long before he started doing official commentary at Skales’ request. When he wasn’t at the microphone, he was at the bar surrounded by laughing hangers-on. Kai joined him after his fights, basking in the attention and praise from his fans. Some nights, it was like they were standing at the top of the world.

Kai felt like the rest of his life had gotten the volume turned down. He and Jay stayed out all night and slept most of the day. He could tell Nya was getting suspicious of their constant absences and the bruises from fighting, but she didn’t seem to want to confront him about it. There was nothing she could have said to make him stop anyway – they were untouchable, unstoppable.

Or at least that’s what Kai thought until he and Jay returned home one morning after a long night and found Lloyd standing outside.

“Heeeeeeey look Kai, it’s the green ninja!” Jay called, flailing his arms a bit in Lloyd’s direction. It made him overbalance slightly, and Kai had to lurch forwards to catch him. He wrapped his arm securely round Jay’s waist to make sure he wouldn’t fall over and crack his head on the sidewalk.

“There you guys are! You had me really worried when I arrived and found no one here” he said. “Wait, why is it only you two? Where’s Cole?”

“Who knows?” Kai shrugged.

“Who caaaaares?” Jay sang out, giggling a little.

Lloyd looked at the two of them with growing concern. “Uh, have you guys been out all night?”

“Mmn” Kai said, letting go of Jay for a moment to unlock the door. “So. You’re back. How…how was your training?”

“It was definitely eye-opening. And it was good to spend time with Dad, get to know him better. Make up for all those years when I was a kid.”

“Yeah? That’s… that’s good to hear, man.” Had Lloyd grown taller in his absence? His muscle tone had definitely improved, and whoah, there was one of those trains of thought he thought he’d learnt how to derail.

“What have you guys been doing since I left?”

Kai was fortunately spared from having to open that can of worms by Jay, who suddenly started whining “Kai? Kai, I feel weird. I really wanna lie down.”

“It’s ok man, let’s get you to bed.” He left Lloyd in the standing alone in the living room, half-carrying Jay up the stairs.

“What’s with you tonight? You aren’t usually this out of it” he said, depositing him on the bed.

“Mmmmm. Tried… something… one of the venomari… real good” Jay mumbled.

Kai felt his blood run cold. “Jay, don’t go messing with stuff like that.”

“S’all good dude… m’fine” he said, with a slightly dazed smile, snuggling into his pillow. Then he closed his eyes and was out like a light. Kai slid in beside him, laying his head next to Jay’s chest so he could feel the steady motion of his breathing, reassuring him that he really was alright.

He had learned over the past few months that Jay always slept restlessly, when he was sleeping at all. He tossed and turned, mumbled nonsense sentences, even woke himself up occasionally by shocking himself with his own lightning. But now he was sleeping peacefully, his breathing deep and even. His body needed rest so badly. Surely this kind of sleep might do him some good?

***

The midday sun was streaming into the room through the gap in the curtains that Kai had neglected to close earlier that morning. He sighed and got up to close them so the light wouldn’t wake Jay, and then exited the room as quietly as possible.

And ran into Lloyd in the hallway.

“Okay Kai, this is when you tell me what’s going on.” He looked kind of pissy. “For starters, where are Cole and Nya?”

“I told you earlier, I have no idea where Cole is. Haven’t seen him in months. And my sister’s been around, but she’s allowed to have a life of her own y’know.” Kai didn’t mention that he suspected Nya had actually been searching for Cole for a while.

“And neither you nor Jay is worried about your missing teammates in the slightest?”

“Teammates? What team, Lloyd? Face it kid, ninja time’s over.”

 “What the hell is wrong with you? This isn’t the Kai I know!”

“Yeah well, looks like he’s gone. Could you please get out of the way?  I was trying to get to the kitchen.”

Lloyd let him through, but then followed him into the kitchen and watched him as he turned the coffee machine on.

“What?” he said, more aggressively than he had meant to.

“I wanna know what’s going on with you. You’re covered in bruises and- is that blood all over your shirt _yours_?”

“Some of it, yeah.” Kai shrugged.

“What the hell did you do last night? It’s not just you either, what’s wrong with Jay? He could barely walk on his own earlier!”

“Jay,” he said, suddenly seething mad, “is _fine_. There’s nothing wrong with him, he’s doing a lot better than before.”

“Then I’m glad I didn’t see what ‘before’ looked like, because he sure didn’t look fine to me.”

“Yeah well maybe if you’d actually been around this year, you’d understand, instead of showing up out of the blue and trying to boss us around. As usual.”

Lloyd looked genuinely hurt at that. “I would have come back, if you’d asked me. I didn’t know you wanted me to.”

“I _didn’t_. We didn’t need you then and we don’t need you now. Jay and I are doing fine on our own!” He retreated back to Jay’s room with two mugs of coffee, not bothering to look back and see Lloyd’s reaction.

Setting both mugs on the small table beside Jay’s bed, he sat down gently on his side of the bed and looked down at Jay’s sleeping form.

“We are fine, right? We don’t need help.”

As if on cue, Jay’s breathing shifted and his eyelids fluttered open.

“Kai? That you?”

“Yeah. Brought you coffee.”

“Thanks.” His whole face lit up when he smiled, it was like the sun coming through the clouds.

“You feeling okay?”

“I feel great. We going out again tonight?”

“Absolutely.”

***

Lloyd hadn’t said anything when he saw them headed out again, but halfway through the evening he showed up at the pit, apparently having followed them. Kai knew he was there, could sense his presence in the crowd, but he was determined to ignore it, focusing on the fight instead.

“Aaaaaaaand the winner is our very own Red Shogun! No surprises there, folks!” Jay’s voice exclaimed excitedly through the microphone.

Kai gritted his teeth, savouring the familiar tang of blood, and waved for the crowd before making his way out of the basement. He didn’t have to check to see if Lloyd would follow him, he knew he would.

“So. Didn’t expect you guys to be frequenting a place like this. How often do you come here?”

“Most nights. Why, didn’t think we had it in us?”

“No, I guess I just expected better from you.”

Kai laughed mockingly. “Go home, Lloyd. Or better yet, go back to your mommy and daddy. They’re back at Darkly’s with Wu, I heard.”

“Fine then, maybe I will. You should get back to your boyfriend, he’s probably wondering where you went.”

“Who, Jay? We aren’t together, what the hell?”

“So what, you share a bed with all your friends then?”

Kai blinked. “Don’t tell me you’re _jealous_.”

“I’m not jealous! I just thought…”

“Thought what, Lloyd? Thought I’d follow you around blindly forever, on the slight chance that one day you’d throw me a bone?”

Lloyd didn’t reply, and Kai shook his head in contempt. “Just go. Go back to your parents, find Cole, I don’t care anymore.”

He turned and walked back to the pit without looking back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jay's such a woobie.
> 
> I wasn't intending on it, but the more I worked on it, the more Fight Club-esque this became. Eventually I decided "go hard or go home", so it became an affectionate parody of sorts. The only rule I left out in the Slither Pit scene was the "no shirt, no shoes" rule, because I figured the Serpentine would have no use for it.


	2. Solitude (Interlude)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cole angsts in his fortress of solitude. Or tries to, anyway.

The thing was, he and Zane had been best friends.

They didn’t have the kind of obnoxiously devoted, touchy-feely kind of best friendship that Kai and Jay had, but they understood each other. The calmer, more solid counterpart to their louder and more boisterous teammates. Sensei Wu had once compared the two of them working together to a glacier, which Cole had thought was a pretty awesome thing to be compared to.

Zane had been an excellent partner, for everything from meditation to endurance competitions. He’d given Cole cooking lessons in secret and hadn’t even needed to be asked to keep quiet about it around the other guys, which was the kind of nice thing Zane just did. So naturally, he really, really missed the guy.

It made it kind of hard to be around the others.

And if he was honest, Jay was getting on his last nerve. He got it, Jay was highly attached to everyone he cared about and the loss of a teammate must be emotionally devastating for him, but – he still had Kai. Cole had no one.

And yeah, it was stupid and petty, but Cole kind of wanted to point out that he’d been closer to Zane than any of the others, so why was it Jay who always got all the sympathy? Zane would have been disappointed in him for saying it though, so he kept his mouth shut.

To be honest, he had felt pretty bad when Jay cried the whole way through the memorial. He’d been meaning to apologise, he really had. But then Kai had gotten up in his face about upsetting Jay, and then he was angry all over again.

So. He left.

He told himself it wasn’t running away, he just needed some space to think without the constant pressure of being a ninja, and well… dealing with the others.

He left Ninjago city entirely and went way out into the country, where he got work wherever he could find it. Eventually he got a fairly steady gig as a lumberjack, which he actually enjoyed. Nothing like good solid hard work to take your mind off things. The trouble was, he couldn’t work 24/7. And when he wasn’t working, he was liable to start thinking, which never went anywhere good.

There was one thing in particular that he couldn’t seem to get out of his head – the nagging guilt associated with the Nya situation. Because the thing was, he hadn’t been entirely honest with his teammates (or himself) about how he felt about her. Oh, he _liked_ her, sure, and he was definitely protective of her, but it was the way he’d feel about a sister if he had one.

It came down to jealousy, really. He’d been envious of Jay’s relationship with Nya from the start – not because he wanted to date her, exactly, but because it was just so easy for Jay to connect to people. Cole, who was frequently dubbed as ‘standoffish’, wished he could do the same.

It was trivial enough when his other teammates were just as single as he was (well, Kai and Lloyd had some messed-up thing going on where they’d stare at each other longingly when the other wasn’t looking, and were constantly trying to one-up each other in training, and had these awful, _awful_ conversations where they were basically just trying to outdo each other with blatant sexual innuendo. Yeesh. But they were both idiots, so the chances of them actually getting their shit together in the near future was slim to none). But then Zane, who used to be his partner in awkward social skills and terrible relationship prospects, met P.I.X.A.L. and they just _clicked_ , and Cole was faced with the sudden realization that he might very well end up alone.

It was around then that Nya started acting weird around him. He probably should have put a stop to it right there and then, but he knew Jay and Nya’s relationship had been on the rocks for a while, and it felt so good to know someone _liked_ him. Better yet, it was _Nya_ – the only girl he actually felt close to. If he was asked to pick one person out of anyone in the world to fall in love with, it would have been her. But even after letting things escalate and essentially becoming the final nail in the coffin of Nya and Jay’s relationship, he still only loved her like a sister.

Guilt didn’t even _begin_ to cover it.

***

He’d gone to see P.I.X.A.L., just before he left the city.

Even though he’d been slightly resentful of Zane’s relationship with her, he actually liked her. She had the same sort of selfless kindness that Zane had, and she was pretty gutsy – a quality Cole appreciated. And she had definitely been good for him. The only time Cole had ever seen Zane as happy as he was with her was when he found out his father was alive.

He was glad the final weeks of Zane’s life had been some of his best.

Anyway, P.I.X.A.L. had been pretty thankful to see him. She’d been acting kind of weird – smiling absently to herself one minute and then she’d be on the verge of tears in the next. She never actually cried though – Cole wasn’t sure it was even physically possible for her.

He’d thought her fluctuating emotional state was simply from coping with the monumental loss of Zane at first, but then she showed him something that completely floored him.

Some part of Zane was still there in the network – a strange little ghost in the machine.

He couldn’t communicate with it exactly, but he got the impression Zane knew he was there and was glad to see him.

“This is incredible, P.I.X.A.L.” he breathed. “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

“I was not sure at first if it was real, or if it was simply a projection of my own mind” she said. “It seemed… too good to be true.”

“No kidding” he said. “I’m still not sure I believe it. Would you mind if I sent a message to the others? They’d want to know.”

Even if he wasn’t technically on speaking terms with them at the moment, he knew he couldn’t keep something like this from them.

“Of course” she smiled. “I am sure Zane’s wish would be to try to ease the grief of his companions.”

In the end, he sent a short message to Nya explaining that P.I.X.A.L. had shown him something that the rest of the team should see. After some hesitation, he added a footnote saying he would be out of town for a while.

“You are leaving Ninjago city?” P.I.X.A.L. asked him.

“Yeah, I think I need some time on my own right now” he replied.

“It is your decision,” she said, “but please, promise me that you will not abandon your teammates permanently. And be safe.”

“I promise” he said, and left.

***

He had expected Nya to show up after he’d left that message, but it had taken her less time than he’d thought it would to find him, considering how careful he’d been covering his tracks.

“You underestimate my detective abilities, obviously” she said. “Aaaaaand, I pretty much knew you’d be living somewhere out in the woods like this. Somewhere quiet, surrounded by beautiful scenery.”

“You know me too well” he replied, slightly embarrassed.

“I believe I know you just well enough” she said, wiggling her eyebrows at him.

“Nya, we really need to talk” he sighed, and she dropped the jovial act immediately.

“Yeah, I figured as much.”

He welcomed her inside, feeling a little self-conscious about his current residence, which was small and sparsely furnished. The tiny PC in the corner was the only thing which had any kind of network link – everything else was exceedingly basic. The only thing he was proud of was the kitchen table and matching set of chairs, which he’d made himself with scrap wood from the lumberyard. He invited her to sit down at said table, and made them both tea.

“Mmmm, thank you” she said when he served it to her. “I never get good tea unless I make it myself. My brother and Jay only ever drink coffee.”

There was an awkward pause.

“I didn’t mean-“

He cut her off abruptly, saying “Look Nya, I should tell you the truth.”

“I’m listening.”

He took a deep breath and said “I don’t think being in a relationship would be a good idea for either of us. The truth is, I don’t really feel that way about you.”

“Oh! Cole, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to push this on you. I thought you liked me too.”

“No no, Nya, I _do_ like you. A lot! But more like a sister?”

“Is there someone else? Another girl?”

“No.”

“Another guy then?”

“No! I don’t feel that way about _anyone_. I’m not sure I _can_ ” he admitted. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have let things get this far.”

“You don’t have to be sorry, Cole. I’m the one that should be apologising for this mess. I actually came here to tell you, I’m not going to try choosing between the two of you anymore. I’d rather keep two brothers than one boyfriend. But Kai was right, I should have been honest with Jay right from the start. And I shouldn’t have dragged you into it.”

“I think… we’re all partially at fault here.”

“Yeah, maybe. I hope I haven’t messed things up between you and Jay permanently.”

“Even though I don’t want to be around him right now, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want me around either, we’ll make up eventually. We just need time.”

“I hope you’re right. But you’re usually right, so.”

“Not as often as you seem to think.”

“Shut up! You totally are.” She shoved at him playfully. “Are… _we_ okay?”

He hugged her gratefully. “We’re always okay, girl.”

He didn’t ask how the others were doing, and Nya didn’t tell him.

***

The next one to disturb his seclusion was Lloyd.

“How the hell did you find me?” was the first thing Cole said when he opened the door and found him standing on his doorstep.

“Nya told me about your fortress of solitude” Lloyd replied.

Nya was a traitor. Then again, he hadn’t specifically told her not to tell anyone else where he was. Damn.

“Are you actually going to invite me inside, or just stand there staring at me?” Lloyd asked. Cheeky brat. Actually, he looked like he was in a genuinely foul mood, which with Lloyd generally meant something to do with either Kai or his father.

“Alright, come in then kiddo” he sighed.

“ _Don’t_ call me that” Lloyd snapped, and Cole held his hands up in mock-surrender.

“Whoah, okay there. What’s up with you? Training with your father didn’t go well or something? He planning to take over the world again?”

“That is so far from funny, Cole” Lloyd said, gritting his teeth. “If you must know, training with Dad was wonderful.”

“Ah. So this is a Kai thing, then?”

“He’s being a _dick_ ” Lloyd spat venomously.

“While I agree with the sentiment, you might have to elaborate a little more there” Cole replied, settling himself into his favourite armchair.

“He goes out and gets into fights every night, like he thinks he’s some kind of ultimate macho god, but then he fusses over Jay like a mother hen, it’s sickening.”

“Ha! I’ve been saying it for years, he babies Jay too much.”

Lloyd snorted. “Never this badly. You should see it, he won’t hear a bad word about him. And he says they aren’t together, but I don’t know any dudes who sleep in their friend’s beds every night.”

“I seem to recall _you_ sneaking into Kai’s bed every night a few years ago.”

Lloyd flushed bright red at that. “I was _ten years old_ at the time! And I had _nightmares_!”

“Uh-huh.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Lloyd continued, in a you-better-drop-it-right-now-or-else sort of tone, “when I confronted him about his junkie boyfriend and his wonderful new hobby, he told me to “run back to mommy and daddy”! I mean, who died and made him king of the jerkasses?”

Cue awkward pause.

“Shit, I’m sorry Cole, I didn’t mean-”

“It’s fine.”

“I mean, Nya told me about his presence in the network, but-”

“Seriously, it’s fine.” He searched wildly for a change of subject, and then frowned when he realized what Lloyd had said previously. “Uh, what did you mean by “junkie boyfriend” exactly?” he asked.

“Have you not seen Jay recently? He’s definitely on _something_. Kai’s trying to act like everything’s fine, but I can tell he’s worried.”

“I haven’t been back for a while” Cole mumbled. His insides wrenched with that sick twist of guilt he was starting to associate with Jay.

“Lucky you” Lloyd said sourly. “You haven’t had to see how messed up they are. It’s a trainwreck waiting to happen, and Kai won’t let anyone help.”

“You mean, he won’t let _you_ help.”

Lloyd didn’t reply. He was trying to mask his worry with anger, Cole realized.

“Lloyd… I know you feel like it’s your responsibility to fix everything because you’re the leader. I know what that's like, believe me. But we’re all adults now, and we all have stuff we need to overcome by ourselves.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Lloyd said, “but I think you’re also using it as an excuse because you’re too scared to face Jay right now.”

“Alright, maybe I am. But tell me something, Lloyd; were you planning to go back to Kai after you found me?”

“He doesn’t want me around” Lloyd mumbled, staring at the floor. “It’s not that easy.”

“Exactly.”

***

He’d found a fragment of what was probably once Zane’s metallic skull after the explosion, and he’d carried it around with him ever since.

“You’d probably be pretty disappointed to see us acting like this, buddy” he said, pulling the shard of metal out of his pocket and polishing it gently with his thumb.

For a second, he almost believed he heard Zane reply, something along the lines of “ _I am mostly concerned for your welfare, brother”_ , because he was a nice guy like that.

The screen of the small PC in the corner flickered slightly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Sensei Wu had once compared the two of them working together to a glacier" haha I'm nothing if not subtle.


	3. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jay and Kai tear up the town

The view was definitely Jay’s favourite thing about their apartment.

Well okay, technically his name was the only one on the lease, and he was the one funding it, but Kai’d lived there since day one. They’d chosen it together, a spur-of-the-moment decision made in the celebratory haze that followed Jay’s sudden rise to fame. It wasn’t quite as fancy as the ‘Hero Suite’ the four of them had attempted to live in for like, a week, years ago, but it was pretty close. Becoming one of Ninjago City’s most popular television personalities had its perks, after all.

He’d been discovered doing commentary at the Pit, by some big name talent scout who wouldn’t take no for an answer (not that he’d needed much persuasion anyway – the prospect of fame and fortune was irresistible to a kid who’d grown up in a junkyard). The media just couldn’t get enough of him once he’d hit the screen, and he was soon in high demand for talk shows, event commentary, and cameo roles in almost every serial drama on television. His manager constantly told him that people were always commenting that he must have been related to some famous actor, because he was a natural onscreen. He always replied, half-jokingly, that he hoped that famous actor was Fritz Donegan. His manager would just roll her eyes at that one, but it always got a laugh out of Kai.

People always said that celebrity wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Jay thought those people were full of it. Maybe one day he’d get tired of it all, but he couldn’t imagine doing so anytime soon. Being famous meant never having to worry about money – he finally had the freedom to buy whatever he wanted without having to think twice, thanks to some lucrative advertisement deals. And better yet, being famous meant never being alone. There was always a party somewhere, at the most exclusive club in the city, on some producer’s private island, his own apartment.

And well, the easy access to mountains of exotic venomari drugs didn’t hurt. Once he let that blissful haze overtake his mind, he didn’t have to think about Nya, or Cole, or Zane, or anything bad at all.

It beat his old life, that was for sure.

***

Tonight’s big do had been at the museum, under the guise of a launching some new couture magazine. Jay’s manager hadn’t really cared about the magazine of course – what she cared about was that it was _the_ place to be seen tonight, ergo he and his entourage had to make an appearance for publicity’s sake.

Jay however, found himself caring about the magazine quite a lot when he realized that whoever was running their event team might have been a publicity whizz, but clearly had no idea how to put on a good show. The party was boring him to death. And his manager had insisted he be on his ‘best behaviour’, which was her codeword for ‘sober’.

‘Sober’ was not exactly Jay’s favourite state of being at the moment.

Glancing at his surroundings, he made a quick decision and carefully extricated himself from his s _cintillating_ (not) conversation with the ancient head of Ninjago’s largest news broadcasting company, heading over to where Kai was leaning next to the bar with a pair of tall, blonde girls. All three of them looked about as bored as Jay felt.

 “This party sucks, man” he said, nudging Kai over a bit.

One of the girls tittered, and fluttered her eyelashes at him.

“I am thinking it is improved… _substantially_? Is that how you say it? Since your arrival, Mr Walker” she said. Her accent was definitely not local – she was probably some foreign supermodel or something.

“Not substantially enough” Jay said moodily, stealing the last of Kai’s drink and easily avoiding the half-hearted shove Kai gave him in return.

“It’s been a couple of hours. That oughta be enough to satisfy She Who Must Be Obeyed” Kai said. “I say we ditch this place.”

“I hear that. What do you say ladies, shall we continue this elsewhere?” Jay said, offering his arm in a charming and gentlemanly fashion to the giggling blonde. She was, he noted with some annoyance, a few inches taller than him, even without the ridiculous shoes.

Nya would never have worn shoes like that.

Kai didn’t even offer a hand to the other girl as he sauntered away from the bar, leaving her to wobble after him and cling to his arm. Jay’s manager eyeballed him a bit as they passed her, but she didn’t protest. The party was fizzling out anyway – probably better to be seen leaving now, before it was officially dead.

They ended up back at the apartment with the girls and the rest of the usual crowd, as well as dozens of random tagalongs. One of the random tagalongs apparently had some good connections with the Serpentine, because he showed up with a huge stash of the latest venomari concoctions, which Jay was _all_ about. He made sure to get the guy’s number – he’d been looking for a secondary dealer for when his regular was out of town.

The night was starting to look like it might turn out to be a success after all. In a _substantially_ better mood than before, he used his lighting powers to set one of the girls’ drinks on fire, which earned him a gratifying chorus of “oohs”. The other one immediately begged Kai to do the same with her drink. He snapped his fingers at it irritably and it went up in a big WOOSHHH of flame, evaporating most of the alcohol and nearly setting the poor girl’s hair alight.

The crowd around them laughed, and Kai smirked.

“I supposed the ninjas were to have good control over their powers?” the girl said. She was trying to play it off as a joke, but Jay could see she was actually pretty distressed.

“Sorry, I guess I’m out of practice” Kai replied. He didn’t sound particularly sorry.

Jay pulled him aside, and asked “What’s with you tonight?”

“Nothing” Kai muttered.

“It’s not nothing. I know when there’s something bothering you” Jay said, trying to look him in the eyes. Puppy dog eyes usually worked pretty well on Kai.

“It _is_ nothing!” Kai snapped. “Whatever. You’re high.”

“It’s just to take the edge off. Loosen up. You know” Jay said automatically.

“Yeah. Sure.” Kai said. “I’m going down to the Pit. Don’t like, OD or anything.”

“You can’t go to the Pit now.”

“What, would that be running away from my issues?” Kai replied angrily. “You know, you are the absolute last person who gets to criticize-”

“Geez dude, talk about jumping to conclusions! It’s nearly dawn, dummy, the Pit’ll be closed.”

Kai deflated. “Oh.”

“Yeah, _oh_ ” Jay laughed.

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay. We all lose track of time.”

“No, Jay, I’m _sorry_. I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. It’s just… you know.”

“I know?” Jay echoed.

Kai’s expression softened and he reached up to tug Jay’s hair gently. “Bad day” he said.

Jay did know bad days. He didn’t like to think about them.

“Hey, so um. That guy who came with all the venomari shit?” Kai said, “I think that was Brad.”

Jay looked blank. “Brad?” he asked.

“You know. From Darkly’s. Lloyd’s… friend.”

“Oh! Wow, it’s been a long time. He’s grown up a _lot_.” Jay wondered if he should mention that he had Brad’s number from earlier. Probably not.

“Mmhm” Kai said, and then “Look, I think I’m just gonna go upstairs and crash. Not really in the mood to be around these people.”

“I’ll join you soon, just let me kick everyone out.”

“You sure? You looked like you were having fun there” Kai said. “Don’t end the party on my behalf.”

“You really wanna try and sleep with all this noise?” Jay shrugged. “Besides, we can do this again any time.”

“True” Kai replied, and headed up the stairs.

“ALRIGHT PEOPLE, PARTY’S OVER!” Jay called over the noise. “JAY WALKER NEEDS HIS BEAUTY SLEEP.”

As he was ushering the last complaining stragglers out the door, he surveyed the mess they’d made of the bottom floor of the apartment distastefully. Empty glasses littered the sofas and tables, and there was a sticky film of spilled alcohol on the floor.

 _It’s like being back at the junkyard_ he thought. Thank God he had people to clean the apartment for him. The place would hopefully be spotless by the time he and Kai woke up.

When he reached his bedroom, he wasn’t surprised to see Kai sprawled across his bed. He had his own room in the apartment, with an ensuite and everything, but he hardly ever used it. They’d both gotten used to sleeping in the same bed, to the point where it felt strange not to.

When he crawled under the covers on his side of the bed, Kai rolled over to face him.

“You have the next few days off, right?” he asked.

“Mhmm. Yeah. Unless She Who Must Be Obeyed springs something on me last minute.”

Kai quirked a tiny smile. “That is a terrible habit of hers” he said.

“Don’t I know it” Jay replied, rolling his eyes.

“Remember the time when she called you up for that talk show, like, two hours before filming was supposed to start? And we were still at that club downtown, and you were _so_ out of it.”

“I remember having to keep running backstage between takes to throw up. That was not a good morning” Jay laughed.

“You did a great job of faking it on set though. Like no one could even tell” Kai said. He shifted a little closer to nudge Jay affectionately. “You are such a mess.”

Jay smiled sleepily. “Right back at you, dude” he replied, turning over so Kai could spoon him.

***

The next day, they were rudely awakened by the insistent buzzing of a cell phone.

Jay automatically reached over to jab at his phone, which was lying on the table beside him, only to frown in confusion when the buzzing didn’t stop. “Nnnnnghhhhhh?” he complained into his pillow.

“S’okay man, it’s my phone for once” Kai said, reaching for it just as its infernal vibrating finally stopped. “You can go back to sleep.”

He swiped at the screen of his phone to unlock it, and frowned when he saw who the caller was. Silently, he rose from the bed and padded over to the ensuite bathroom, closing the door behind him.

Jay listened to the muffled sounds of Kai muttering on the phone to someone, but he couldn’t make out any of the words. It was probably Nya on the other end of the line – he knew she called Kai occasionally, but he never spoke to or about her in front of Jay.

He curled up under the blankets unhappily, already missing Kai’s familiar warmth beside him. He was just on the brink of dozing off again when Kai exited the bathroom, looking pissed.

“You can probably guess who that was” he said. “She wants to know if we’ll be around for Sensei’s birthday. This coming Wednesday.”

“Who else is gonna be there?” Jay asked.

“The whole gang, or so she tells me” Kai replied.

Jay winced internally. They had seen the others exactly twice during the past year, and both occasions had been excruciatingly awkward. The first had been the ceremony when Misako and Garmadon had renewed their wedding vows. Jay and Kai arrived late and left early – just long enough to congratulate the pair and avoid conversation with any of the others.

The second time had been on the anniversary of Zane’s death. They hadn’t needed to avoid conversation that time because everyone just stood there silently, except P.I.X.A.L., who didn’t show at all. Jay had been worried about her, wondering where she was. He thought Cole might still be in touch with her, but it wasn’t like he could ask him about it.

“So what did you say?”

“I said I had to ask you first.”

“Well” Jay hedged, “I don’t have any pressing commitments so, we don’t like, have any reason to _not_ go.”

Kai sat on the bed next to Jay. “I know that” he said. “I’m asking you if you _want_ to go.”

“Are you gonna go?”

“Not if you aren’t” Kai replied, and at Jay’s soft noise of protest, he added “I mean it, I don’t think I could face them if you weren’t with me. That’s why I’m asking you what you want to do.”

“I just. I mean, I’m not exactly looking forward to yet another awkward get-together, but. This is for Sensei, you know? I kinda… owe him a lot.”

“Yeah. We all do, I guess.”

Jay shifted uncomfortably and gave a vague noise of assent, which earned him a look of suspicion from Kai.

“I get the feeling you’re not telling me something, Jay” he said.

“It’s nothing. It’s nothing, seriously! Don’t worry about it. But yeah, I do, um. Think we should be there for him on Wednesday.”

“Okay. We’ll go, then” Kai said. He still looked suspicious, but he didn’t press the issue any further.

***

The birthday dinner somehow managed to be more awful than Jay had anticipated.

Shortly after the two of them arrived, Nya announced that Cole wasn’t going to be coming. Jay was sort of relieved to hear it, but the disappointed look on Sensei’s face broke him a little.

Kai, on the other hand, was incensed at the news, and launched into a rant about how Cole didn’t even have the decency to show his face to celebrate the man who had done so much for them. Lloyd immediately jumped in to defend Cole, declaring that he had come by just the other week to wish Sensei well, and could at least be relied upon to visit more than once a year, unlike _some people_.

The two of them ended up screaming at each other over the table until Garmadon put a very firm stop to it, but by that point the damage had already been done. Kai spent the rest of the dinner glowering at the table while Lloyd stared daggers at him, and for some reason, Jay as well.

Jay, uncomfortable and trying to deflect the situation, enquired whether anyone knew if P.I.X.A.L. was coming or not.

“Oh, I sent her a text about it but she never replied” Nya said breezily. Her eyes didn’t quite meet his when she spoke. “She probably didn’t care much for it – it’s not like she was really part of the team anyway.”

“I just. When she didn’t show up for the anniversary, I was kinda worried. I thought maybe Cole might, um. Know a little more about it?” Jay ventured.

“I don’t think so? Cole was saying the other day, last he heard from her was a few months back. She was trying to find a way to get the imprint Zane left in the network back into a nindroid body, but apparently it wasn’t working out too well. She’s probably still busy with it.”

“Oh. Right” Jay replied awkwardly. He was still feeling kind of dubious about P.I.X.A.L’s apparent disappearance, but everyone else seemed kind of preoccupied, so he didn’t push it any further.

Instead he spent the rest of the dinner brooding about how Nya was apparently seeing Cole pretty regularly, but couldn’t even look at him properly while talking to him, and about how much of a let-down they must all be for Sensei.

He volunteered to help with the dishes once they were done eating, not wanting to have to sit around and make any more small talk. He ended up doing the actual scrubbing, passing them along to Misako and Garmadon to dry. They both politely congratulated him on his recent success, and then the two of them chattered to each other about mundane, everyday topics without any expectation of him to join in. Jay thanked them silently for being relatively inoffensive company.

Suddenly they heard raised voices from out in the hallway, and then Kai stormed into the kitchen.

“We’re leaving” he said tightly, “I’m not dealing with this anymore.”

Jay nodded and hurried to finish the last few plates. “Let’s go say goodbye to Sensei then.”

***

Their drive back to the city was quiet. A storm was brewing out on the horizon, big dark clouds blotting out the sky.

By the time they got back to the apartment, the first fat drops of rain were already beginning to fall. Kai had gone straight to his in-home gym, like he always did when he was frustrated. Jay deposited the leftovers Misako had given him in the massive fridge he and Kai hardly ever used, and softly padded his way across to the huge floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room without bothering to turn on the lights. The room was dimly lit with an eerie purple glow from outside.

He stood there watching the storm for a while, and then in a sudden, reckless manoeuvre, yanked open the sliding door which led out onto the balcony. The force of the wind hit him immediately, spattering him with rain. A small puddle began to form on the floor of the apartment next to the open door.

Shrugging off his jacket, he stepped out into the storm, face and palms upturned into the heavy rain. A burst of thunder rumbled above him, and Jay could taste the electricity in the air, calling to him.

“You’ll freeze if you stay out there without a jacket” Kai said, appearing soundlessly in the doorframe behind him, finished with beating the hell out of his punching bag.

Jay smiled. “Storms are kinda my thing, you know” he said, without turning around. “I used to go play out in thunderstorms all the time when I was a kid. Drove my mom insane.” He laughed softly.

Another peal of thunder sounded, closer this time. Jay felt the lightning building above them.

“You aren’t impervious to hypothermia” Kai said.

“Mmm.”

“Your manager’ll be pissed if you get sick, Jay, c’mon.”

“Mmm.” The air was alive with energy, it was close, so close.

“Come on, come back in and let’s watch a movie or someth-”

The sky above them unleashed a bright flash. Jay stepped right into it, feeling every cell in his body scream as he was flooded with white-hot energy.

“Goddammit Jay, you crazy bastard! Get back in here now!” Kai yelled, grabbing him and yanking him back inside. The two of them collapsed in a soggy puddle on the floor.

“Do you have a fucking death wish, Jay? Is that what this is?” Kai snarled. He was clinging to him tightly, so tightly, like he would never let go.

“Just a bit of lightning” Jay said, “hardly gonna hurt me.” He felt drained, his muscles aching, but in a good way, like after a really intense training session.

“Well shit, for all I know you’d jump off the roof next, since you’re obviously not thinking rationally!”

“I tried that once” he said quietly.

Kai was pressed so close to him that he could feel it when his heart stopped for a split second and then started banging away madly.

“When?” he asked. His voice was hoarse.

“Years ago. Before. That was, uh. How Sensei found me, actually.”

“You always said he found you testing one of your inventions.”

“Yeah, I was, um,” he twitched nervously, not wanting to look up at Kai’s face, “I was trying to make it look like an accident. It was a stupid little flyer, I knew it wasn’t going to work, but I thought, you know, it might spare my parents some. Sensei, he never said anything, but. I think he knew.”

Kai squeezed him even tighter. “I never knew” he said. “You always seemed so lively.”

“I’m a fantastic actor, remember?” Jay replied, but when he did look up, Kai’s expression was so heartbroken that he had to add “no, but. Being with you guys made me happy too, happier than I’d been in a long time. I was a real lonely kid, so.”

Kai reached and cupped Jay’s face gently with one hand, turning it to face him. He drew in a deep breath, eyebrows knitting together, and said “Jay. I need you to be honest with me. Do you feel like that now? Like you want to…”

“Off myself?”

Kai flinched. “Yeah, that.”

“Not really. I mean, I think once you have that idea in your head it never really goes away, so. I still get those thoughts occasionally. But it’s not the same.”

“I just, you know. You said you were happy when we were a team, but now things are… Different.” He glanced down at the floor. “I was really worried about you those first few months.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“And I’m still worried about you. I never wanted to say anything before because at least it meant you weren’t like, catatonic, but you know you can’t carry on like this, right?”

“It’s not a big deal” Jay muttered.

“Bullshit.”

“It’s not! It’s just to-”

“-take the edge off, loosen up, I know. I know all your bullshit excuses, Jay. It’s a coping strategy is what it is, and a lousy one at that.”

“Don’t worry about it, Kai. I have it under control, I promise.”

“No, you don’t! Lloyd might be an oblivious little shit about everything else, but he’s right about one thing – you need help.”

Jay stiffened and pulled away from Kai. “Why the hell would you talk about me behind my back like that – with Lloyd of all people? You two can’t even stand to be in the same room these days.”

“I- this afternoon he was going off at me for my “unsavoury occupations”, so I asked him if he knew that his former friend was a drug dealer. And then he wanted to know how I knew that, obviously.”

“Oh, nice one Kai. Thanks.”

“Look, I’m sorry about bringing you up like that to Lloyd, but what he said made me realize how fucked up this situation is, and I’m not gonna enable it anymore. You have to quit, okay?”

“I’m telling you, it’s really not a big deal” Jay said, rising from the still-wet floor.

Kai grabbed hold of his arm and gripped it tightly, pulling him back down to his eyelevel. “You have to promise me, Jay. _Promise me you’ll stop._ ”

“Alright! Fine, whatever” he said, not meeting Kai’s gaze. “Can I go now? I’m getting cold.”

Kai sighed. “Yeah. Go take a hot shower, I’ll get the water on the floor cleaned up.”

Jay made his way to the bathroom, feeling the awful guilt of lying to Kai like a lead weight in his stomach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hhhholy shit this chapter just wouldn't stop growing. I had to split it in half eventually, so part three coming soon!


End file.
